The forces of supply and demand are against her. Rents in her village are rising, because each year there are more people on the same amount of land. She cannot bargain for better pay, as there is always someone else willing to dig in her place. This season she has earned too little to rent a plot. She will work as a casual labourer throughout, buying a kilo of maize flour with her daily wage.
Africa is at an earlier stage of this transition than Asia or Latin America. Nearly all rural Africans still till some land of their own, which often remains their chief source of income. Half of them can be considered farming specialists, in that they earn more than three-quarters of their income from their fields. But household surveys show that people spend just two-fifths of their working time farming their plots. A quarter is spent processing, transporting and selling farm produce.
The quickening of commerce is also creating opportunities. Traders in Bushenyi buy jerry cans of mudfish and transport them along a chain that stretches across Lake Victoria to Tanzania, where fishermen prize them as bait. A local women’s group is making cooking pots. Gordon Ahimbisibwe rides door-to-door on his motorbike, buying coffee beans which he sells to an exporter.
Class distinctions are thus becoming sharper, as those with land and capital hire the labour of others. The World Bank’s household surveys typically find that wage work in rural Africa is rare. But that may reflect biases in the way that questions are asked, argues Bernd Mueller of the International Labour Organisation. Respondents often conflate the concept of employment with formal salaried work only.